Rory Donaldson, Vertical Balcony: Moving Up Slowly, 2011, digital photography, 45" x 17", edition of 1 plus 1 AP (image courtesy of Winkleman Gallery)
Rory Donaldson: Shared Roadway Ahead
March 23-April 21, 2012
621 West 27th Street
New York, NY
Rory Donaldson’s most recent exhibition at Winkleman Gallery sterilizes photography. Cityscapes and landscapes generated by Donaldson are subjected to “an emotive selection of process” which allows for digital erasure, movement, and re-proportioning of elements in the photographs. Trained as a painter in oil and acrylic, Donaldson underlines how his two fancied media interact and overlap. Formal characteristics of the photographs, such as depth and realistic morsels of reality, recede into abstract narratives revolving around color and gesture. There is a digital residue that never dissolves, highlighted by calculated segments of hues and sharp lines.
Rory Donaldson, Adoration: (Great Hoy) Tank of Gold, 2012, digital photography, 11" x 14", edition of 1 plus 1 AP (image courtesy of Winkleman Gallery)
Donaldson appears dissatisfied with photographic representation. The objective lens is a dishonorable representation of the world he sees so obviously molded by the decisions of its inhabitants. The RDX series in this exhibition supports the tradition. Each photographic adjustment reveals a fabricated world, dictated by the obscurities of emotion and memory. Adoration: (Great Hoy) Tank of God (2012), for example, implies the haze of the Sahara desert, the false focus of wandering under stress, and the drain of searching for an oasis. This images are solely navigable via feeling, standing in contrast to the balance between emotion and rationality we consider every day.
Rory Donaldson, Keep Forgetting: Redux Stain, 2011, digital photography, 11" x 14", edition of 1 plus 1 AP (image courtesy of Winkleman Gallery)
